The Olympic Games are the pinnacle sporting event for athletes, with more than 10,500 athletes competing in the Summer Games and just over 2,500 athletes in the Winter Games. At the most recent Summer Games in London, women constituted their highest percentage of participants ever, with 44.3 percent (4,751) competing for 205 national Olympic committees.

In her book So Much to Live For, Althea Gibson, the African American athlete credited with breaking the color barrier at two of the most prestigious tennis events in the world, Wimbledon and the United States National Tournament (later to be called the U.S. Open), wrote, "Most of us who aspire to be tops in our fields don’t really consider the amount of work required to stay tops."

Women have more purchasing power than ever before. In fact, they now account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending in the United States. Over the next decade, they will control two-thirds of consumer wealth.

On June 26, 2014, Alysia Montaño, defending champion in the 800-meter event who had won a total of five national titles, joined a field of top runners on the track at Hornet Stadium in Sacramento, California, during the U.S. National Track and Field Championship. What a difference a year had made in her performance, however.

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Women and Sport: Continuing a Journey of Liberation and Celebration focuses on women winning access to the playing field as well as the front office in sport. Readers will gain an understanding of how women have been involved in sport and physical activity, how they have struggled for widespread recognition and legitimacy in the eyes of many, and how they continue to carve out their role in shaping sport as we know it today and as it will be in the future.

Edited by renowned expert Ellen J. Staurowsky, widely accepted as an authority on college athlete rights and Title IX and gender equity, Women and Sport facilitates interdisciplinary, research-based discussion by providing a detailed account of contributions from women in sport. The text features a foreword by sport executive Donna Orender and 15 chapters—written by leading authorities in women and gender studies in sport—that are grouped into four parts:

Women’s Sport in Context: Connecting Past and Present reminds readers of the historical events and influences that shape today’s landscape.

Women, Sport, and Social Location explores how various characteristics and qualities may affect sport participation and opportunities.

Women in the Sport Industry offers a rare and contemporary approach to examining women in sport leadership, management, and media.

Women and Sport was developed with the intent of filling a need by serving as a primary textbook and separates itself from other titles by providing an abundance of instructor ancillary materials that assist in class preparations. Pedagogical aids such as objectives, glossary terms, discussion questions, and learning activities in each chapter facilitate student understanding of the material covered. Sidebars throughout the text enable the contributors to provide thought-provoking content on topics such as media coverage of female athletes, how female athletes are used in marketing campaigns, and whether athletic competitions should continue to be segregated by sex. Readers will discover the impact of these topics in many areas of society, from biomedical to psychosocial and historical.

Through its engaging content, Women and Sport: Continuing a Journey of Liberation and Celebration serves as a launching pad for discussions that will shape society’s ongoing conversation about what it means to be a female athlete or a woman working in sport. It is an ideal textbook for adoption in interdisciplinary courses that focus on women and gender studies in sport.

Contents

Preface
ForewordDonna Orender

Introduction: Becoming a Female AthleteDayna Daniels, PhD

Part I Women’s Sport in Context: Connecting Past and Present

Chapter 1. Women’s Sport Through the Lens of History

Ellen J. Staurowsky, EdD

Women’s Education in the Late 1800s

Female Complaints and the Suspect Science of Female Weakness

Women’s Physical Education and the Fair but Weaker Sex

Learning Aids

Chapter 2. Title IX and Beyond: The Impact of the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements on Women’s Sport

Ellen J. Staurowsky, EdD

The Story Behind Title IX

A Brief Overview of Title IX’s Legislative History

Growth in Athletic Programs Since Title IX

What Every Citizen Should Know About Title IX

The Future of Title IX

Learning Aids

Chapter 3. Women’s Sport in the 21st Century

Ellen J. Staurowsky, EdD

Sport Involvement for Women and Girls: Changes in Baseline Data

The Concept of the Female Athlete Paradox

Paradox of the Female Athlete Warrior

Paradox of the Strong Female Athlete Who Feels the Need to Apologize for Being Strong

Paradox of Femininity and Muscularity

Transcending the Paradox: The Female Athlete Who Is Unapologetic

Separate But Equal: Does It Remove or Reinforce the Paradoxes That Affect Female Athletes?

Learning Aids

Part II Strong Girls, Strong Women

Chapter 4. Benefits and Risks of Sport Participation by Women and Girls

Textbook for undergraduate students in women and sport or gender and
sport courses; supplemental text for courses in the disciplines of sport
administration, sport history, sport management, sport sociology, sport
studies, women’s studies, and kinesiology. Reference for professionals
and scholars interested in researching interdisciplinary issues
concerning women and gender in sport.

Ellen J. Staurowsky, EdD, is a professor in the department of
sport management at Drexel University. She is renowned as an authority
on the business of college athletics, college student-athlete rights,
and Title IX and gender equity. Staurowsky has been featured in numerous
national media outlets and served as an expert witness in the historic
antitrust case O’Bannon v. NCAA. Staurowsky draws from more
than 30 years of experience as both a practitioner and scholar, having
served as a collegiate athletic director at multiple colleges as well as
a coach at the collegiate level of field hockey, women’s lacrosse, and
men’s soccer. Before her appointment at Drexel in 2011, she was a
professor at Ithaca College, where she worked for nearly two decades.
Staurowsky teaches courses in women and sport, gender issues in sport,
legal foundations of Title IX, and sociology of sport. She is a member
of the College Sport Research Institute advisory board, the Ursinus
College Board of Trustees, and various professional organizations,
having previously served as president of the National American Society
for the Sociology of Sport. She is coauthor of College Athletes for
Hire: The Evolution and Legacy of the NCAA Amateur Myth.

Instructor guide. Includes a sample syllabus, discussion questions, and learning activities to assist in lecture preparation.

Test package. Includes questions for each chapter in true-or-false, multiple-choice, essay, and short-answer formats.

Presentation package. Includes PowerPoint slides that can be used in classroom lectures or printed to be distributed as handouts. Slides can be rearranged, edited, and incorporated into other presentations as well as searched for content based on key words.

The presentation package is also available for purchase • ISBN 978-1-4925-1810-5